Gerhard Johannes Vossius

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Gerhard Johannes Vossius

Gerhard Johannes Vossius , also Gerardus Johannes Vossius (* March or April 1577 in Heidelberg ; † March 17, 1649 in Amsterdam ), was a Dutch scholar , humanist and theologian .

Life

Gerhard Vossius was the son of Johannes Voss, who had left the Netherlands because of the persecution of Protestants and settled as a pastor near Heidelberg. As a Calvinist he got into trouble with the Lutherans , who set the tone in the Palatinate. He therefore returned to the Netherlands, where he studied at the University of Leiden . After graduating, he became a pastor in Dordrecht .

His son Gerhard Johannes Vossius was born in Heidelberg and, after attending the Dordrecht Latin School, also went to Leiden to study, where he studied the classical languages, Hebrew, church history and theology. He spent most of his life at the University of Leiden, where he took over the chair of eloquence in 1622. In Leiden he met Hugo Grotius , with whom he remained friends all his life. In 1600 he became a teacher at the Latin School of Dordrecht and until 1614 its head (rector). From 1614 to 1619 he was rector of the theological faculty at Leiden University .

His academic career was marked by great successes and setbacks. He soon enjoyed an excellent reputation as a scholar and theologian not only in the Netherlands, but also in Germany, France and England. In 1606 Vossius became known as a classicist with his rhetoric ; In 1607 his textbook on Latin grammar was published . However , his opponents used his work Historia Pelagiana , published in 1618, as an opportunity to suspect him of heresy . He was also suspected of sympathy for the Remonstrants . Vossius had to resign from his office a year after this book was published. Immediately after the Synod of Dordrecht (1618–1619) Vossius lost his post in Leiden because he was suspected of sympathizing with the Remonstrants who deviated from strict Calvinism. In 1622 he was reinstated and taught rhetoric and Greek at the university. In 1629 he received a call to Cambridge University , but he refused.

In 1632 he became a professor of history at the newly founded Athenaeum Illustre Amsterdam . He brought out two important essays on the history of Greek and Latin literature (1623-27), an essay on poetry (1647) and works on mythology and art . Vossius owned a considerable collection of manuscripts. Vossius also wrote about Christian theology and early church history, as well as mathematics (1650), which also lists many mathematicians and is therefore of importance for the history of mathematics

The German Romanist Heinrich Lausberg named a special form of antonomasia after Vossius as "Vossianische Antonomasie", in which he reversed the ancient antonomasia and advocated using a proper name instead of a periphrase .

Works

  • Oratoriarum institutionum libri VI [1606]
  • Historia Pelagiana sive Historiae de controversiis quas Pelagius ejusque reliquiae moverunt, libri VII [1618]
  • Rhetorices contractae sive partitionum oratoriarum libri V [1621]
  • Aristarchus, sive de arte grammatica [1635 and 1695]; New edition 1833–35
  • Etymologicum linguae Latinae (1662; new edition 1762–63);
  • De historicis Graecis Libri III [1624]
  • De historicis Latinis Libri III [1627]
  • Commentatorium rhetoricorum [1630], digitized
  • De theologia gentili et physiologia Christiana, sive de origine ac progressu idololatriae, deque naturae mirandis quibus homo adducitur ad Deum, Libri IV [1641]
  • Dissertationes tres de tribus symbolis, Apostolico, Athanasiano et Constantinopolitano [1642].
  • Poeticarum institutionum libri III [1647]; New edition 2006
  • De artis poeticae natura ac constitutione liber [1647]; New edition 2006
  • De Imitatione Liber [1647]; New edition 2006
  • De universe mathesios natura et constitutione liber, 1650

literature

Web links

Commons : Gerhard Johann Vossius  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Biography of Vossius in Joseph W. Dauben , Christoph J. Scriba (ed.): Writing the history of mathematics , Birkhäuser 2002, pp. 558f
  2. ↑ Biebuyck, Benjamin; Martens, Gunther: Metonymia in memoriam. The figurative staged discourses on forgetting and remembrance in Günter Grass and Elfriede Jelinek. In: Literatur im Krebsgang. Necromancy and memoria in German-language literature after 1989. Ed. Arne De Winde and Anke Gilleir. Amsterdam u. New York: Rodopi, 2008, pp. 243-272. (Amsterdam contributions to recent German studies; 64), p. 253.
  3. ^ Auction from February 2, 1829 in Nuremberg : Vosii GJ etymologicon ling. lat Amst. Elzevir, 1662 in: Directory of books = collection of Rector Hoffmann , who died in Nuremberg , which ... Google Books, online , p. 1, position 3.
personal data
SURNAME Vossius, Gerhard Johannes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vossius, Gerardus Joannes; Vossius, Gerhard Johann; Vos, Gerrit Janszoon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch scholar, humanist and theologian
DATE OF BIRTH March 1577 or April 1577
PLACE OF BIRTH Heidelberg
DATE OF DEATH March 17, 1649
Place of death Amsterdam